News Handjobs and Strippers: Your Tax Dollars At Work
posted by June 3 at 18:24 PM
onEarlier today, the US Attorney’s office released an affidavit detailing the long, lurid list of crimes allegedly which allegedly occurred at four strips clubs in Seattle, Shoreline, Everett and Tacoma—all owned and operated by the Frank Colacurcio family.
According to the affidavit, a three-year operation found that prostitution is “rampant” at the clubs. Just how rampant was described in detail by undercover SPD officers who received numerous lapdances and sometimes haggled with strippers over the cost of a handjob.
One detailed account describes how one Seattle police officer negotiated with a stripper, getting the price of a handjob down from $100 to $75 to $50. There are also numerous descriptions from officers who watched strippers provide oral, vaginal and anal sex to customers in VIP rooms.
SPD says officers didn’t participate in any sexual activity during the operation—which was apparently spearheaded by SPD as a response to Strippergate—but that’s not exactly how the filing reads.
Some descriptions of encounters between officers and strippers—mostly at clubs outside Seattle—explicitly state that after officers were offered sex, they paid for their dance, got up and left. In several reports, though, there is no description of officers turning down sex and/or leaving clubs.
US Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Emily Langlie says the omissions were likely due to boredom. “It just got boring writing the same thing over and over again,” she says. SPD reaffirms that officers did not pay for sex during the operation.
Even if SPD officers didn’t pay for extra services during their lap dances, the city certainly put a hefty chunk of change in the Colacurcio family’s pocket. Lap dances ranged from $40 to $100 and the affidavit spends 11 pages describing conversations between officers and strippers, and lists dozens of lap dances, with officers sometimes getting two or three at a time.
The US attorney also provides a look at the financial schemes used by the Colacurcio family to get extra money from dancers—by making them pay to cash in poker chip-style tokens that customers used to pay for dances, on top of the daily $130 fee dancers pay to work at some of the family’s clubs—and details the underreporting of clubs’ income, which may lead to federal mail tampering charges.
The US Attorney hasn’t actually charged anyone involved in the Colacurcio operation. However, the members of the family—and several employees—are barred from entering or selling the businesses until the government finishes its investigation. If and when this thing goes to court, the government could end up seizing the Colacurcio’s properties, including Rick’s on Lake City Way.
Seattle could soon be out yet another strip club—that is, unless Uncle Sam decides to open up a titty bar.
Comments
This is what happens when you restrict this shit--look at Portland, they have hundreds of AWESOME strip clubs! No one gives a fuck down there....thats it im moving...
Is it so bad that all I want are some tits shaking in front of my face while I enjoy a nice cold beer?
Maybe the WSLCB could open up a chain of titty bars in their liquor stores. Shut at 7, all day Sunday, too, just like God intended.
Good riddance to the Colacurcios. Please clearly explain why The Stranger is depending them. Do you think strip clubs are impossible without two bit mobsters?
BOREDOM?!?!? You really think we're gonna believe the idea that officers chose not to fully document their night's work cuz they were bored? Boy, I'd love if that same excuse was used in a lackadaisical writeup of an officer shooting someone. "Yawn, ya know? These things happen so often, man. You know, if I was the chief, I'd put me in charge of strip club protocol. THAT'S some action."
#4 - kinda agree.
This could just as easily be a case of the fed's "it's hard to pin them for what they're really up to, so we'll get'em for this."
@4: maybe because they ARE two-bit, and the city keeps trying to make them out to be the Sopranos, and because it's the stupid city regulations that keep the Colacurcios in control.
What @4 said. (Elenchos is on a roll today.) You don't have to be a sex-hating Puritan nutjob to find this whole affair a little slimy.
Elenchos @4:
"Good riddance to the Colacurcios. Please clearly explain why The Stranger is depending them."
Because Frank C. is 90, and Depends come in handy.
First - the report is 100 pages long, detailing every single interaction with dancers at 4 clubs over 3 years WOULD be boring.
Second - I'm all for legalizing prostitution, but when you read the testimonies by some of the dancers, you see clearly that many of these women are forced or pressured into it by the "rent" fee. It's practically serfdom. In fact, it's a damn good example of why it should be legal -- so shit like this doesn't happen.
Good ol' Seattle - such archaic stripping regulations that they practically force women into prostitution in order to make any money.
Even though I want there to be lots of legal, well-regulated (not ridiculously overconstrained as they are currently) strip clubs around, I have zero problem with the feds shutting down the Colacurcios.
portland is laughing at us.
if you figure dinner & drinks into the equation, it costs me more than $50 to get a handjob at home. i can't afford anal.
I won't say what I think because you censor SLOG.
@13: That's because you're a fucking troll, and fucking trolls get righteously bitch-slapped down like they damned well deserve. Fuck off.
@14: And you are such a darling. Light as air and sweet as sugar.
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